Sergei Lavrentiev

Russia

Sergei Lavrentiev was born in 1954. He began his career as a theater actor in 1970's. After graduation from the prestigious VGIK (Russian State film institute) he joined Gosfilmofond, one of the world biggest film archives. During perestroika he went on to become a leading film critic known as one of the founders of "new wave" of Soviet film criticism. He has written about Central and Eastern European cinema for numerous publications including "Sovietsky Ekran", "Iskusstwo Kino", "Kultura". After his article "Never ending story" (April 1987) Soviet censorship stopped to cut foreign films in national distribution. At that time he played the part of the great film genius Eisenstein in the film "Prishvin's Paper Eyes" (1989). Also appeared in avantgarde film "Concert for the rat" (1995). In 1990's he was an anchorman for number of television programs named "Kinomarathon" and devoted to the centenary of cinema. Since 1999 — program director of Sochi IFF, IFF "Faces of Love", Children Film Festival "Kinotavrik" in Sochi: From 2002 — member of Russian "Oscar" committee. He wrote a small book, "Clint Eastwood. Furious and Handsome" (2001), and is about to publish a new book, "Western under the red banner".